How do I turn off Sync Services Agent?

excellent, killing the SynService solves it, thank you indeed, great work!

Hi everybody, this is pretty much the solution, you all need to go offline when it asks to close syncservicesagent... but to be sure open the activity monitor and kill it anyway, it will appear again whyle you are online but will not influence installation. So answer is GO OFFLINE the minute it ask to close syncserviceagent... it worked fine for me.

One question -

Is it totally impossible to dream of Microsoft Updates for Mac to simply automatically do what needs to be done so the updates can install and then return the Mac to its previous state?

I noticed with this most recent update that SyncServices Agent simply would not behave and stay closed. I'll try the offline trick next time if I get stuck. While I'm no longer a "Mac Newbie" (after more than 7 years since I joined this forum), and am quite capable, I find messing with this nonsense with every Office update a royal pain in the rear.

Lord knows that no one else requires such hoop jumping but Microsoft. I barely use Office any longer since Pages et al have improved, but given that I have paid for it I figure I'll keep it until it is so out of date I cannot update it any longer.

Thanks

Had no problem with daemon (closing it @ activity monitor) using instructions mentioned above, but "the royal pain-in-the-***" a.k.a. SyncServicesAgent caused some problems. In the end, went off-line and tried 5 times, after which it finally accepted to close itself. Outlook updated...

Hi, I know I am literally new and this is my first post. I had this same issue with a Mac Mini and this is what I did that easily fixed this issue.

Note: I am saying what worked for me, results may vary.

Please read all instructions before you start, because they might not be in order.

1. Open activity monitor and you will see that Agent that's causing us trouble. (Don't quit or force quit it yet)

2. Run your Office Update to the point where that agent is holding us back.

You have to be fast on the next step.

3. As soon as Office requests the closure of the agent ("Closing Application"), go to your activity monitor and quit that wicked agent.

If your Apple device is password protected, your will get that prompt to enter your admin password and there goes your successful installation.

I hope this helps someone out there, and Let the odds be in your favor!

Worked for me many thanks.!🙂

Hi

For me it was as simple as this : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2482074

it has something to do with deactivating sync functions in outlook. And it work. I was also off line.

Good luck...

Thank you SO MUCH! I've tried a handful of other solutions and yours was the only one that worked. THANKS!

Simple Solution

I had this problem and read loads of posts on how to get around it. With a bit of trial and error, I came up with a solution that worked for Mac Mini running OS X Version 10.10.2.

Dragging SyncServicesAgent to my desktop, using activity monitor to close it and disconnecting from the internet had no effect. The d-a-m-n thing always started (normally immediately) again and prevented Office update from doing its stuff.

The thing that worked for me was to find SyncServicesAgent in Applications>Microsoft Office 2011>Office and rename the file by simply adding a letter at the end - so it was, for example, SyncServicesAgentx. You'll get a warning that changing the name while it is running might cause problems, but I ignored this and was then able to close the service in Activity Monitor. The update process then went ahead as it should.

Once the process was complete, I changed the SyncServicesAgentx name back to SyncServicesAgent and all is now fine. Don't forget this step.

I hope this helps

How do you turn SynchServicesAgent back on again? I'm presuming it's an important application?

Ben

I've never had an issue restarting it. It should restart itself immediately if you follow the process I have described. If not, I'm sure a restart will have the same effect.

This was the only way I was able to get it to work. Just type it in the Terminal window and it installs without issue. Thanks!

Just to be clear, that last step -- and the step which everyone here is looking for -- is pretty much just

"launchctl remove com.microsoft.SyncServicesAgent", and the problem is taken care of. Cheers!

This is the only solution that worked for me:

launchctl remove com.microsoft.SyncServicesAgent

It works, thanks a lot.

Supplanter, this worked when NOTHING else would. Thank you so much!